25/02/03 - 10/06/14
Human family: Angela Schild
Photo(s) of Luca (3)

Luca

25th February 2003 - 10th June 2014

I first saw my Luca cat when she was a few weeks old. She stole my heart.

I collected her when she was nine weeks old and I am sure that was too young " I actually took her from her mum which always made me feel sad. She was so scared; she snuggled under my top in the car on the way home and spent her first night in the spare room on her own. Not the best start but Tarka was fairly hostile to her and I couldn’t let her be beaten up. I couldn’t find her straight away the next morning and only a floor to ceiling search found her " she had put herself to sleep in the continental pillow pillowcase. The second night she slept with me and for the next 11 years, that was the case whenever possible.

She grew out of her timidity fairly quickly and she and Tarka made friends. She always wanted to be friends with Tarka, Tarka wasn’t so sure. The last time there was any trouble, Tarka tried to bite her and one of Tarka’s milk teeth fell out " I think she decided that Luca was strangely off limits at that point and the two got on like a house on fire. They loved each other, played with each other, slept together, and washed each other. They were inseparable.

When Tarka had her back problems and I had to bath her to wash away the urine, Luca used to run up and down next to the bath, crying out for Tarka and then washing her dry afterwards. When I used to wash the floor with Milton she used to drape herself and rub herself all over it. She was a little mad!

She was also fairly mischievous as a kitten and a formidable huntress (thief). The first time we realised her kleptomaniac tendencies was when she brought home a perfectly cooked, still warm hamburger patty and proudly presented it to us. She then progressed onto chop bones, the bits of paper in meat packages, pot scourers and sponges and the piece de resistance " an old wound dressing. She also loved to catch cockroaches and crickets and on a good night, we might wake up in the morning and find 10 cockroaches and three crickets, dead - and scattered around the bedroom. She never caught many birds or mice although was quite happy to chatter at them in the garden.

In South Africa, she was very much an outdoor cat who was out most of the night and then dozed all day long. The move to the UK changed that to a large extent. At first, while in quarantine, she sulked terribly. I used to go and visit them every week while they were there and the routine was pretty much always the same…

When I got there, Tarka would start shouting LOUDLY because she could hear me and she was so excited to see me. Luca was more subdued. When I went in, Tarka would be all over me, purring and meowing and giving me kisses. Then she would get bored and would go and lie down or wash and then I would get to love Luca. Luca liked to lie on my lap and sharpen her claws on my jeans (She did that for years afterwards " I do not own a pair of jeans without pulled threads!). She would also get the devil in her and try to bite me when I gently tugged her ears " but never hard " she had a very gentle mouth. Then Luca and I would play. There wasn't much space so we could not play like we usually did, but I would do what I could and then pat her hard on her side and she purred so loudly - she was so happy.

She loved soft toys and the little mice with rattling things in their tummies. If you gave her one of those mice, the tail would last for about 10 seconds before she had eaten it. She killed and ate the soft toys. My beautiful furred gloves didn’t stand a chance. She would throw the soft toys around and then bring them to me, drop them at my feet while meowing loudly and proudly and then she would eat them. My cat also stole the local children’s soft toys! My husband saw her furtively come in one day carrying something " it was a toy Siamese cat. She also brought home a pink teddy bear saying “It’s a girl!” and a blue one saying “It’s a boy!” She also brought us a toy frog. It was really embarrassing as I had no way of knowing who they came from or what child she had stolen them from.

We got them out of quarantine after the six months were up and they were so happy to come home albeit seemed a little shell-shocked by all the space they had. Luca decided that night time was a good time to play with her mice and other toys so I would then have to get up and take them away from her and snuggle her until she went to sleep. Tarka just purred and purred. Every now and again, they would shout because they couldn’t find us - but they settled in really well. And Luca became a very loving and social cat - much more than she had been in SA. There really was a marked difference.

The first time they went outside they raced around like lunatics and Tarka fell in the pond because it was covered in duck weed which looked like grass. Luca was convinced that she was ready for the big bad world again and after two weeks of being indoors, they were allowed out again. They loved the UK. One morning I came down to the kitchen and they had cornered a baby greenfinch but were really scared of it " so just stared and then ran to tell me all about it. They were like that " real scaredy cats. Luca used to growl when the doorbell rang. But I think that is because she was usually on my lap and knew that it meant I would be getting up to answer it.

For Luca, the primary purpose of my breasts was for kneading " she would go into a trance kneading them. She would also spend hours washing my hands for me because I was obviously very dirty. She would try and wash my husband occasionally but it was too ticklish for him. She loved to suck Tarka’s ear " when they lay together, Tarka always had a sopping wet ear that had been sucked and chewed to bits. Most nights, when I bathed, she joined me in the bathroom. I had taught her to jump onto the toilet from where I would have to cup my hands and fill them with water so that she could drink delicious bath water. She used to “prrum” at me before this and we would talk to each other a while before she jumped up.

Luca adored biltong and Parma ham and especially my husband’s raw chicken that he used to cut up for curries. She would hang around his feet and gently ask and he would give her little titbits. She and Tarka loved their special chicken cat food and used to get it every Friday. They knew it was a Friday and would hang around me until I gave in and fed them. Tarka gobbles up her food too fast and quite often throws it up. Luca would kindly clean it up for us as well.

I was really fortunate that for most of the time I have been in the UK (indeed until October last year) I worked from home and the rhythm of my days included the cats and where they were and what they were doing. I am so grateful for that time with them.

Luca would usually spend the day on my lap and was convinced that my typing was a special game that I was playing just for her. She would watch me type and very gently catch my fingers in her mouth when they came close to the edge of the keyboard. In the five years that I worked at home, two laptops needed to go to tech support because the keyboard was totally gunked up with cat fur! Their rightful place was on my lap being loved.

She loved playing. We used to play a stair game which involved me poking my hand out from between the stairs and trying to catch her tail and legs and she would try and kill it. I also used to throw her mouse up the stairs in such a way that it went through them and slid down to the bottom. She used to race up and down chasing the mouse. We could spend hours doing that " I usually tired before she did!

She loved going outside. Every morning, she would wake me up by tapping me lightly on my face. I would stroke her and snuggle her back under the duvet and she would purr and wait for another 15 minutes before trying again. Once I was up, she would race me downstairs and I would open the front door for her and she would go and do her morning rounds. Even if it was miserable and cold, she loved going out. But if it was cold, would come back in fairly soon for a cuddle.

In May 2012, she was diagnosed with arthritis. She was put on Metacam which she adored. Only once she had eaten did she get the medicine. She would pretend that she had eaten and when I had checked her breath for biscuits and told her no, she would run back and pretend to eat again " that would continue until she really had eaten. She took so much pleasure from it, and I know that it might have shortened her life but I could not live with a cat in pain, who cried every time you picked her up.

She loved watching Springwatch " that was an especially exciting show. She used to watch from my lap until it got unbearably exciting and would then jump off and go and stand up in front of the TV to see close up. Most animal shows were interesting as were cartoons.

Sadly (and it is something that I will always feel terrible about) for the last two months of her life, Luca cat was in an Elizabethan collar. She had a sore on her belly button which she just wouldn’t stop licking. I don’t know why I didn’t take her back to the vet sooner to get a cream or something because when she was at her last check up (two weeks before she got ill) they gave me a cream and it started healing. She hated the collar. But when she was on my lap in the evenings and on the weekends I would take it off and let her wash herself (covering the sore with my hand) and love her and stroke her. She was losing weight but I thought it was because of the collar, so every night I would hand feed her. She would fall asleep tightly coiled up under my jersey and I would gently cradle her. On the Thursday, when she got sick, I took the collar off and left it off " so she had three days without it before she went to the vet and I am glad of that " even if she didn’t feel all that well.

I am not going to linger on the six days that she was ill or the terrible desperate pain of putting her to sleep - she died in my arms purring to the end and we miss her desperately. We miss her - and are only now starting to put our lives back together.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

I love and miss you my Luca cat. With all my heart and soul. You’ll never be forgotten.

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